We’re all getting used to HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) for fast downloads on mobile broadband and our mobile phones, but T-Mobile has today switched on it’s HSUPA (High Speed Uplink Packet Access) facility, which does the same thing for uploads.  Limited to a maximum of “only” 1.4mbps, it’s faster than most broadband download speeds! Not all kit supports HSUPA today, and it’s not clear how widespread T-Mobile’s roll out is today, but it’s a start.  They’ve also upgraded their HSDPA to a maximum of 7.2mbps, but again, without coverage information, this may not benefit many people either.  The only good thing is that T-Mobile have at least stated that the 7.2mbps network is likely to result in real world speeds of 4.5mbps, in line with other providers.

If you are heading to Glastonbury and don’t have a solar charger (or of course, it rains), and you need to recharge your mobile, you may want to head to the Orange Recharge Pod. Inside are mini-lockers where you are able to lock your phone into whilst it recharges, so you don’t have to stand there. The tent has 500watt solar panels and a 500watt wind turbine, which Orange are hoping will allow them to recharge upto 100 devices an hour. No mention as to whether or not Orange will recharge your phone for free, but we applaud the idea, and hope that such recharge tents can become regular fixtures at a whole range of events.

Picture and some content courtesy of smartplanet.

Anssi Vonjoki, Nokia’s VP of Mobile Markets, has stated that Nokia will launch a whole range of touchscreen phones in 2009, not just high end smartphones, but “from the very low segment to the highest one featuring this type of functionality.” We’re not sure that Nokia would want to redevelop both S60 and S40 to support touchscreen, so these phones are likely to bring S60 phones down to more consumers.

LG have had some success with their touchscreen phones, from the Viewty to the latest LG Secret, and of course there’s the iPhone.  Whether Nokia can achieve the consumer experience to the same level as Apple waits to be seen.

After our story of last week, it appears Nokia have rebuffed their own CFO. Nokia are now saying they have no plans to release Linux based phones. It’s possible that Nokia’s Linux strategy for Internet Tablets (where it is likely to be announcing more Linux *devices* in the next year) got confused with pure mobile phones, but we would have thought their CFO would know the difference. We’ll have to wait and see whether we see any Linux mobile phones from Nokia over the next year or two to see whether he was actually right…

It appears there have been a couple of surveys in the last few weeks where people have been asked about mobile phone calls on aeroplanes. Overall, both surveys showed most people are not keen on the idea of “I’M ON THE PHONE” calls taking place in the, air, but generally, those same people support the idea of instant messaging and data access. The Yahoo survey in the UK reported the following numbers:

• 87% of people would like voice calls banned
• 38% would like SMS support (of course, that means 62% don’t want that either)
• 28% would like data support (whether 72% want it banned, or just wouldn’t use it isn’t clear)

In other parts of the same survey, 49% said email would be useful (I’m not sure how the 21% who don’t want data are going to get their email!), and 14% said they would like to check the weather.

Equally, a US survey by Harris Interactive (but still commissioned by Yahoo it would seem) came up with similar results:

• three quarters said cellphone support should be limited to “non-talking” features
• 69% said if calls were allowed, there should be a “talking area” on the phone, ie you only disturb other people on the phone, and not the person in the seat next to you

Of course, it’s only in the last year that the network operators have realised they can make real money from data services priced at sensible levels, so whether the airlines listen to surveys like these, or just plough ahead with voice only services at very high roaming rates remain to be seen. Another point to note; we don’t think the survey included price within the question; consider these two questions:

• Would you like to check the weather and receive your email on your phone whilst in the air, for a flat fee of £1 for the whole journey?
• Would you like to check the weather and receive your email on your phone whilst in the air, paying a ridiculous £10 per Mb? (which isn’t far off Orange’s old UK rate of course)

We suspect people will want the first scenario, and the airlines will want the second scenario…

Google are planning to introduce a single banner ad per page when Google is accessed through mobile phones on its mobile web pages. Google have stated it will be a single ad to ensure it does not impact on the mobile browsing experience.

More information at SMS Text News.

As from today, the iPhone should be £100 cheaper, ie it now costs £169 plus a contract. This should apply to both Carphone Warehouse and to O2 shops. Although stocks have been limited over the last few weeks, this seems to support those theories that stocks are being finally cleared out for the 3G iPhone to appear in June…

For those who have bought an iPhone in the last 30 days from a Carphone Warehouse store, even better news; “Launched 10 years ago and already responsible for customers receiving millions of pounds, the Ultimate Price Promise means The Carphone Warehouse will automatically give vouchers to the value of £100 to anyone who has purchased an iPhone from the store in the last 30 days.”

Here’s an interesting rumour we’ve picked up on via the internet. It appears that Nokia might be trying to beat Apple to the launch of the first 3G touchscreen smartphone, by announcing the 5800 Tube in advance of the iPhone announcement in June. Although they’ve both been beaten to touchscreen mobiles (like the LG Viewty), it would be an interesting turn of events if Nokia beat Apple to this crown. It’s unlikely, but an interesting rumour nonetheless…

This is a picture of the new LG Black Label phone, continuing on from the Chocolate and Shine models. It’s formally due out in the next few weeks, although it’s not yet named. It features a 5 megapixel camera, and will feature materials like Carbon Fibre and tempered glass. Exact technical specs will be released later this month, with pricing. However, LG have indicated that Europe will receive the phone first.

As we first reported here, Air France have now expanded their In Flight trial to now include voice calls too. It’s believed that the airplane can handle around a dozen simultaneous calls, and is likely to cost in the region of £1 to £2 per minute (the exact rate is set by your network operator). The trial should continue for 3 months, unless any problems are discovered in that time.

Story Courtesy of Wi-Fi Networking News.

Google have just announced their Outlook sync support to allow you to sync your Outlook Calendar directly with Google Calendar. For those of us who use solutions such as Goosync to keep our mobile phones and smartphones synced with Google Calendar, the ability to sync this directly with Outlook is a welcome feature. More information here.

If you have a S60 Nokia, then head to mobile.google.com from your phone, and download the new Google shortcut application for your phone. This installs a Google icon onto the Standy Screen, which when selected brings up a box in which you can type your search, and then Google will return the results in a web page. This should work with a wide range of N-Series and E-Series mobile phones.

Picture courtesy of Google’s Official Mobile Blog.

Thanks to LGBlog, we’ve had an LG Viewty phone here for a while now, and we want to provide you with some details about it.

What is it?

It’s a high spec mobile phone, with a 3″ touchscreen which makes the device very easy to use, and easy to pick up without reading the manual. It’s a bit like an iPhone, although it does have a few buttons on the sides, which makes certain functions easy to use. It has a 5 megapixel camera (with a Xenon flash), Bluetooth, and ships with a USB cable, a CD-ROM with software, a charger, a wired headset (also used for the FM radio), and a screen protector (which is a nice touch). Two optional extras are available, a deskstand and a leather case.

Call quality is fine, and we had no major issues with any part of the phone, in fact, we found most functions intuitive, and did not need to refer to the manual, except for a few functions.

How Big is it?

The phone is 103.5 x 54.4 x 14.8 mm and weighs 112g, which makes it very pocketable. We found the phone the right size to hold and use (unlike some phones which are a little too small to use day in day out).

Nice features…

The camera has to get a special mention. Not just is it a 5 megapixel with a decent flash (Xenon), but it’s got Image Stabilisation (which works well), and in video mode (120fps recording) also features a slow motion replay mode. On top of this, the phone support TV-out, allowing you to show these videos and high quality pictures direct on a TV. As the device also supports DivX videos, you can even watch videos on the TV from the device.  There is a little shutter lag though.

The phone has a microSD card slot (although it quite hidden behind the battery). IT’s well worth getting a card as somewhere to store all those high quality pictures and video footage the Viewty encourages you to take.

There are various buttons on the device which provide useful functions. Around the camera is a jog wheel (for scrolling through menus); we found this a little difficult to use at times, but the new LG Silver Viewty has a redesigned jog wheel, so we guess LG has reacted to user feedback here. There’s a lock/unlock button (which is very welcome, allowing the ability to quickly unlock the touchscreen when you need to use it). If you don’t lock the screen / buttons, it will automatically lock after a (configurable) time too. Also on the side is a slider (to select between camera, video camera, and playback mode), a shutter button (much more convenient than the iPhone), and the lock/unlock button turns on/off image stabilisation.

The small USB port (a fairly new port style) is located on the side, which seems strange, but is nicely protected with a sliding cover. This is used for the USB cable, and charging (the USB cable can charge at the same time). Although we were concerned about needing to carry “another” cable type around, this is can be used for charging, so you only need to carry this single cable with you.

Downsides…

No SyncML support - for a high spec camera phone, it’s going to be up against the likes of the Nokia N81/82/95, and we missed the lack of SyncML. We use SyncML services to allow access to a single contact database / calendar on a multitude of devices, so not having this support meant a fair bit of manually editing information (although it was possible to get some contacts onto the device via other means, such as Bluetooth).

As the phone is not marketed as a smartphone, it understandably has no Wi-Fi, although it does have HSDPA, so with the right data contract, the lack of Wi-Fi should not be an issue for most people.

Other points to note

As long term Nokia users, we are used to firmware updates, which were previously performed at Nokia Service Centres, but more recently the phones have supported firmware upgrades via the PC. We could find no reference to user controlled firmwares, and hence can only assume this is not an option. We understand LG may release new firmwares for the device, should it be necessary, but we could not get confirmation as to how these would be made available to users.

Overall opinion

After a month of usage, not just are we impressed with the phone, we intend to keep on using the phone on a daily basis, which we believe says something about the phone.

Gizmo, the VOIP service provider has launched a new service in the US, called Backdoor calling. Gizmo have discovered that a whole range of standard landlines and mobile phones are directly accessible via VOIP (ie without the call going over traditional phone lines). As such, Gizmo offers free calling to these numbers. Even better, the called party can use the Caller ID number to return a call back to the Gizmo user too.

Gizmo are looking to extend this to other countries, so we’ll keep you informed if and when the UK gets included, and which UK providers are included.

Air France are spending most of 2008 running trials of mobile phone technologies on European flights that use some of their Airbus A318 planes. On these flights, once the “No Mobiles” light goes off, users can use their phones for sending and receiving SMS, MMS, and emails. In the second half of the year, they will also include voice support. The plane contains a picocell, which then transmits the signal via satellite. This will involve international roaming rates, which may limit the number of people actually using the trial.

Story courtesy of Engadget, Picture courtesy of vliegtuig.

After the success of the black LG Viewty, LG have announced that from the end of January, the new “Dark Silver” version will also be available. The main specs are the same, although they’ve redesigned the jog wheel slightly. We’ve been using a black LG Viewty for some while now, and hope to have our review online soon.

Fancy a Porsche mobile phone? According to Coolest Gadgets, MobilePhones24 will soon be stocking this Porsche branded Sagem mobile phone. The phone features a touchscreen which can swivel round 360 degrees, a fingerprint reader, access to a concierge service, an mp3 player and a 3.2 megapixel camera. EDGE and Bluetooth support are also included.

Despite Mobilephones24’s Press Release saying details were available in the Coming Soon section of their website, we could not easily find such a section, so can’t provide any greater information on the specs or price of the phone, although given it has a concierge service, we’re expecting this phone is going to cost more than the average handset.

Huawei, a name becoming more familiar in the UK and Europe, is considering entering the mobile phone market in 2008. They are, apparently, considering entering into talks with Qualcomm (whose BREW system underpins the 3 SkypePhone), Symbian, and are already in talks with Microsoft over which interface to put into the phone (or phones).

Huawei have some experience in the mobile phone arena, as they have already developed a number of data devices, including the 3 USB Modem. In fact, in Europe, Huawei have adopted a business model of having their devices branding by the network operator.

Having said all that, including the fact they already produce GSM devices, it’s likely their initial mobile phone offering will be CDMA based, and hence of no use in Europe.

Thanks to CBR.